25/09/2009- What makes a web site effective?
Ever considered what constitutes an effective web design? We have...and we’d like to share it with you.
Our web design criteria consist of two main sections; Graphic Design and Strategy. There are several sub headings that come under these two major headings.
Graphic Design Found it! It’s the feeling you get when you’re browsing websites, and then you find one think ‘that’s what I’m looking for!’ at a single glance. This is an important point you must bear in mind because research has shown that website visitors take only a fraction of a second to decided if the web site, and it’s associated web design is conveying the information they’re are looking for. Ironically, visitors make this judgement without even reading the information that they are searching for.
We think that a clean, crisp looking site that give this off this impression. Slim headers are a must, with an appropriate image and a relatively short headline of 6-12 words. Shorter ‘landing’ pages are also good as it avoids enforcing excessive scrolling for the user.
Credibility Credibility is all about avoiding scams and sticking to something customers think they can trust. It’s interesting to note that people tend to consider quality of web design as a strong indicator of quality of product. There is a particular level of graphic design that communicates credibility. Chances are, if your web design looks “homemade”, then users will jump to the same conclusion about your product. Always try and use professional web designers and graphic designers when putting together a website and any marketing material.
Focus
When you arrive on the website, you want the user to know where to look straight away, and where to focus. If there are too many links and banners on the page, it’s difficult to know where you need to click. A straight forward approach would be to simplify your navigation to match what the majority of your visitors will be looking for, and then offer visually prominent links to those items.
Strategy The second section is called strategy. When you arrive on a website it needs to be obvious what the site is about, and how you are meant to interact with it
A good direction to go in would be the following:
- Introduce the context/ industry that you are operating under- and explain the problems
- Outline what your product does and how it can assist in/ resolving your problem
- Explain how your product/service provides its results.
Offer Once you’ve generated interest in your potential customer, it makes sense to try and take it to the next step. With many products that may be a purchase, but in some cases it may be a free trial, or a proposal.
19/08/20009- The drawbacks of Twitter
If configured incorrectly (and it can easily happen!) Twitter is nothing more than a mighty spam engine. It is abused by a small percentage of users, and if you don’t monitor your Twitter thoroughly you might find your account morphing into nothing more than an additional junk mail folder of annoying and irrelevant “tweets”.
A recent study taken out by Twitter said that it considered 40% of all tweets to be “pointless babble”. And to make things worse, there are software applications such as “My Twitter Butler”- a piece of desktop software which facilitates spamming by autofollowing users based on key words, and permitting mass sending of DMs to followers. As expected, Twitter doesn’t like My Twitter Butler. The Twitter corporation recently threatened the software developer behind My Twitter Butler to stop the application straight away because it uses the Twitter name, and infringes Twitters own terms of service.
Good on Twitter you might say. Because this kind of spamming is now so common it is annoying to everyone, apart from the spammers themselves. But what about all the other software developments who use the Twitter name? Twitteriffic, Twitterholic and Twittercounter, TwitterFon and Twitterfox amongst others. Why let others use the Twitter trademark, but attack the software developers they don’t like?
However, Twitter should be able to effectively enforce its terms and conditions at the platform level, without the need for expensive law cases.
So be wary of Twitter. The platform itself is now peppered by spammers, and it is perhaps a little difficult to take the company seriously when it threatens one developer over his use of the word 'Twitter' in a product name but actually encourages another that uses 'Twitter'.
05/08/2009- Amazon web services and Amazon ecommerce services
What are Amazon Web services (AWS) and Amazon ecommerce services (ECS)?
If you are a high volume seller it is very likely that you are already successfully using these services. If not then read on to see what AWS and ECS have to offer...
What are Amazon web services (AWS)?
AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a service provided by Amazon that allows the user direct access to Amazon’s technology platforms. Such access gives you the opportunity to develop web applications, web tools and websites built upon the Amazon platform.
What are Amazon ecommerce services (ECS)?
ECS (Amazon ecommerce services) is the shortening known for the Amazon.co.uk Associate are of Amazon Web Services. Amazon.co.uk Associates can use this service to acquire information on Amazon.co.uk products and other website functionality in real time and for no fee.
Examples
ECS allows users to access catalogue information for Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and other Amazon websites such as Amazon.de and Amazon.fr via an interface. Examples of product information include title, artist, latest price (Amazon MarketPlace and Amazon Seller Central), customer reviews.
An example of functionality might be the list of accessories to the item requested, a list of items similar to the item observed, and so on.
What are the benefits of using AWS and ECS?
By owning a website you can integrate the product information and real time feeds on functionality flawlessly into your own ecommerce website. Your website will updates with the latest information from Amazon on their products.
Web developers are also benefiting from using these services to build into ecommerce applications for Amazon customers, retailers and website owners. Our own piece of software- Cascade is fully integrated with Amazon web and ecommerce services to provide up the minute details on Amazon products for our clients.
Where do I find out more about AWS and ECS?
To find out further information about Amazon Web Services see http://www.amazon.com/webservices
If you are a high volume seller it is very likely that you are already successfully using these services. If not then read on to see what AWS and ECS have to offer...04/08/2009- Up & coming changes to categories on eBay.co.uk and eBay.com
eBay has said that there will be changes to a number of an assortment of categories, sub categories and item specifics.
Is your category on
the list? According to a recent announcement the main categories to be affected are:
- Tickets and Travel
- Home and Garden
- Books
- Comics and Magazines
- Property
These changes are going to come into play in the week commencing the 22nd September, so multi sellers be ready!
This also mean that we will have to make some tweaks to our Cascade software in time to accomodate them. We'll make sure that there will be no glitches in the centralised system that streamlines sales not just through eBay, but also Amazon, Play and Priceminister from a centralised inventory/ user interface for a number of our clients.